The End of an Era… or is it?

Do you remember Disney’s Toontown Online? It was a family-friendly MMO game where you could make friends, play minigames and beat up corporate robots with the power of slapstick comedy. Toontown was a staple of my childhood; it wasn’t the only kid’s online game I played, but it was definitely my favourite one.

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end. With the game losing subscribers and, therefore, money, Disney decided to close the doors to Toontown in September 2013 after 10 years of service.

That would have been the end if the fans of Toontown Online didn’t have anything to say about that!

When it was announced that Toontown would be shut down for good, many determined and tech-savvy players got to work on preserving the game that they loved. In the months after the original game shut down, a handful of private servers were created and entered the testing phase. Most of the original servers are no longer available to play on, but one has risen above the rest and continues to be the most popular fan-run server: Toontown Rewritten.

The History of Toontown Rewritten

The person who started the project that would become Toontown Rewritten was a teenager named Joey Ziolkowski. He gathered up a team of other talented fans, and, together, they began to work on Toontown Rewritten shortly after the announcement of Toontown Online’s closure. By October 2013, Toontown Rewritten entered its alpha phase of testing, which was playable by anyone who was lucky enough to get their hands on an alpha key.

The end of Rewritten’s alpha phase reintroduced the corporate robots known as the Cogs in a cinematic event known as “Doomsday”. After a couple of more months in closed beta, Toontown Rewritten officially entered open beta for all fans to play in September 2014.

Over the next few years, the Rewritten team worked hard to reintroduce everything that was in the original Toontown Online and squash all the bugs that came with the updates. As much as I love Toontown, I will admit that it was never the most stable video game to begin with, and some bugs took much longer to fix than others (looking at you, physics-breaking golf balls!). Toontown Rewritten finally reached the end of its beta phase in 2017.

New and Improved

Although Toontown Rewritten’s development has slowed since the end of beta, the Rewritten Team continues to maintain and update the game. Notable updates include an improved Options menu (with the ability to change keybinds) and a month-long event where the toons raided one of the Cog HQs.

On December 3, 2021, Toontown Rewritten released its biggest update and the first game expansion to include brand new story content exclusive to this private server.

One of Toontown Online’s old game modes, known as Sellbot Field Offices, were never implemented in Rewritten due to how unpopular they were. Instead of abandoning the idea completely, however, the Rewritten team remade these Field Offices from the ground up. The new Sellbot Field Offices are tough-as-nails challenges for the strongest of players that end with a unique boss battle.

Alongside the Field Offices, veteran toons can enjoy a new storyline where they join a secret organization who are on the front lines of the battle against the Cogs. Every secret organization also needs a secret hideout; can you find the hideout’s entrance?

We may never know if we’ll ever see Toontown in an official format again, whether from Disney or another company buying the rights to the IP. Maybe a spiritual successor will come around one day. Either way, I’m glad that there’s still a way to play this gem of a game, and it’s all thanks to the work of Toontown’s most dedicated fans.

Toons of the world, unite!

Danica Best

Danica “Dani” Best is a 20-something Professional Writing student that loves creating stories and worlds almost as much as she loves gaming. If she isn’t writing, working or playing video games, she is probably asleep. Can be lured out with tasty desserts.